lost to Goffin in 4 sets, he still doesn't like to play him. He still might improve his career high ranking (18), but the gap to #16 increased.

He's going to play on clay now at the Golden Swing, probably the easiest way to earn ranking points, so it's not unlikely he will be seeded in IW and Miami (as we know Fed won#t play Miami, and probably someone ahead in rankings will miss IW due to injury).

I'm sure he has top 10 potential (not sure about top 5), but that's not all required (ask Dimitrov or Fognini). And I think he won't make top 10 this year, the gap is too big, and the old generation still won't go without fighting, so if the season developes very well I see him at #12 at the end, but it's also possible he suffers a bad spell and finishes outside top 16.

beating Nadull on clay in BA SF is his 2nd win against a top 10 player (the 1st being Wawa in Madrid '14)

I liked the ATP headline, Argen-Thiema

Probably Thiem plays the part of Fognini from last years in 2016. Though he should be more consistent, I don't think he'll challenge the real big guns, RG SF at best, QF more likely. Don't know his planned schedule for the European clay court season, maybe he targets the one Djoker will ignore. He's top 16 now, I'd skip Acapulco nowand concentrsate on IW and Miami.

12th is what I considered is possible for Thiem at the end of the season if he does really well, at the moment it looks like he's on the the right way.

Potro, it's way to early to know whether he is able to play at high level for a whole season after those long breaks due to surgeries.

While he showed last week that he can win after a great match, he couldn't do it this time, imo more physical than mental weakness this time. So I don't know why he's going to Acapulco, I see again troubles coming up for Austrian DC team, I hate the games Bresnik is playing using Thiem as his pawn just the same way Leitgeb did with Muster, when Bresnik coached Skoff. I hoped this would be done when Leitgeb retreated from leading the Federation.

Hope you had a good trade!

After beating Dimi 7-5 6-2 he is now fav for the tournament win, Querrey is the bigger threat in SF imo, but 1.8 looks about right.

He's gone down in my estimation after realising he supports Chelsea!

what sense does it make Portugal playing Austria on a hard court? What are they playing on what they consider to be Thiem's weaker surface yet Gastao Elias cant even win a match on a hard court, at least he is quite a solid player on clay and he would have had much more of a chance to beat Thiem on clay if he had a bad day.

not playing really well in IW, 7-6, 7-6 vs Kovalik not impressive, 7-5, 6-7, 6-1 vs Sock was ok, but without any chance vs Tsonga (3-6, 2-6), I didn't understand why odd were almost evens for this match.

End of Thiem.

End of thread.


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CeLSVlMWoAINRXe.jpg:large

Beating Groth after wasting 8bps in set 1 breaking on his 3rd 0-40 lead doing a comfortable set 2. After Sousa being promoted to a seeded slot and qualifier Nishioka beating Lopez he had an easy ride into rd4, now waiting if Sousa can beat Djoker to open his road. With Fed withdrawing and LL Zeballos eliminating delPo Goffin is threatening Goffin is threatening his #13 ranking.

Thiem didn't play bad vs Djoker, but didn't take his chances. You don't often get 15 bps vs Djoker, but winning only 1 (donated by a df) is poor on the other hand. And Djoker won't do 9 dfs next time! Djoker was off his best by far, but the odds told a story, not dropping much after 1st set, that Thiem was a dangerous opponent able to win a set.

As it had to be expected after the withdrawal of Fed and the loss of Ferrer Goffin overtook him in WRL. I would be satisfied with him reaching the QF at RG this year, let's at first look how he performs in the big tournaments till then. He never won a match in MC, then he plays Munich (don't know why he still follows the schedule of a journeyman), probably followed by Madrid and Rome. I hope he doesn't defend his Nice title.

Bresnik saying Thiem is scheduled to play Nice as well, on the other hand he said he wants him going into RG with 15 matches on clay. But if Thiem proceeds like he should do on paper, that schedule means 19 matches at least

After losing to Nadull in MC rd 3, Kohli in Munich final and delPo in Madrid rd 1 (which of course was an unfortunatley hard draw), rd 3 in Rome brings up another biggie with Fed. It's their 2nd match and the 1st on clay. Of course he will have to do better on break opportunities if he wants to win it. This was again his weakness being defeated by Nadull and delPo.

Due to his failure in Madrid it looks very unlikely he'll make a top 12 seeding for RG (Munich doesn't count for the moment), so he is likely to meet one of the top 4 seeds in rd 4. Therefor I can't understand why he is 7th fav on the outright market.

He even has a deep uuuuuughh grunt after every stroke just like Rafa They're so alike. If he wasn't beating Alex Zverev every week because of his superior fitness and whipping heavy topspin forehand I'd become a fan.